New Ways Ministry: Building Bridges Between the LGBT Community and the Catholic Church

Broken Hill New South Wales

An Australian bishop has overturned a Catholic school’s decision to exclude a five-year girl from registering because her parents are a lesbian couple. A story by Natalie Whiting on abc.net.au, quotes Bishop Kevin Manning:

“There’s no way in the world one can penalise a child for what his or her parents do,” he said.

“To penalise a five year old child because her parents are living in a homosexual relationship is just quite wrong and I’ve been in touch with both the school principal and also the parish priests.”

It’s good that the bishop stood up for what is right. Too bad he couldn’t have done so in a more positive way, citing the wrongness of discrimination. He could have taken a lesson from Wincen Cuy, the local mayor in Broken Hill, New South Wales, where the school is located, who is quoted in another news story on the topic :

“To be truthful, this whole story came to most people in Broken Hill as a bit of a shock,” Mr Cuy said. “This is not how we do things around here. Apparently, the decision has now been overturned, so one could say that common sense has prevailed. Broken Hill has a very strong gay and lesbian community, who are completely accepted as part of the social fabric of Broken Hill.”

The bishop could have also followed the more positive example of the Archdiocese of Boston, which stated the case more positively, when a similar case happened there in 2010:

“We believe that every parent who wishes to send their child to a Catholic school should have the opportunity to pursue that dream,” [Mary Grassa] O’Neill (Archdiocese of Boston Superintendent of Schools ] said in an official statement. “